Letting agents should be aware that there have been two recent changes to the How to Rent guide.
By law, tenants must be served with the latest, current edition.
However, two changes have been made – apparently without even the Ministry of Housing noticing.
Its own website says that the last update was on May 31, taking into account the Tenant Fees Act.
But on June 3 the guide was updated to change NALS to its new name, safeagent.
On July 29, the guide was updated again, changing the wording from “If you don’t have a guarantor you can ask Shelter for help”, to “. . . for advice”.
Lawyer Giles Peaker said on the newsletter Nearly Legal: “This really should not happen. While the changes are relatively minor tweaks, they are changes nevertheless.
“And as the statutory requirement is for the tenant to be provided with the version of the guide current at the time, silent changes obviously present problems – how many landlords and agents will be using the original May 31 version without knowing it has since been changed?
“While I would imagine a court would give a certain leeway in the circumstances should it be raised, this is not an issue that should have arisen in the first place.
“Please, MHCLG, do not do this again.”
The link to How to Rent is below – as of yesterday, it did not show either of the two latest updates.
Hi Ros: That link now opens the updated version so every letting agent in England might want to get clicking as the first thing they do today.
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I should point out that when you open the link it still says the last update was on May 31st but the pdf download certainly refers to safeagent and turning to Shelter for advice.
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And the date on page 2 was May 2019 in the June and July versions. The date of the version released on 7th August is still May 2019.
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Really, I mean really. What is the government playing at? This document has been a complete waste of paper and time for everyone involved. Anyone with a jot of intelligence can see that.
And with the complete lack of version control.
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Is this surprising from this Idiot Government? Just take a look at the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government – the Rt Hon Robert Jenrick. He looks like he’d need a note from his mum if he has to be out late on government business.
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So what are we supposed to do – retrospectively send this out to every person who started a tenancy from June onwards because they changed three words in it?!
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What Landlord can imagine the court giving any leeway to them, rather than Tenants ? – not going to happen ! Court system is as biased towards Tenants as it can get, whilst Govt claim for ‘ Redressing the balance ‘ !!!
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